"For All the Saints"

All Saints' Day was observed on Sunday, and - of course - "For All the Saints" was one of the hymns in church.  I noticed a couple things while singing it, re-discovered a note about something else I'd noticed a year ago and hadn't written about yet, and found yet an-other thing while looking at the hymn again in order to write this post.

The tune to which the hymn is sung is titled "Sine nomine," which I think might be something of a joke because this means "without a name" in Latin.  I should also note that from verse to verse there are occasionally some differences in the music in order to accommodate the text.

Here's the first musical phrase:

In the second verse, the text here is "Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might."  The tune is in G major, and "rock" is sung to a G (the tonic note), so there's a musical representation of that firm foundation.

In the fifth verse, the text is "And when the fight is fierce, the warfare long."  "Long" is sung to a whole note, and since this is the longest note in the phrase, there's a sense of duration.

The third musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest."  "Forever" is sung with a melisma (D C B A G), musically giving a sense of duration.

In the fourth verse, the text is "Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine."  Here, "all" is sung with a melisma (C B), musically giving something of a sense of entirety.